Janet's Kintsugi Quilt: Not Your Grandma's E2E Quilting

Good morning and Happy Passover/Happy Easter to all who are celebrating this weekend!  The quilt I'm sharing today was made by my client Janet in a Kintsugi workshop taught by Pepper Cory.  (You can read more about kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, and how Pepper translates this idea into quilting, on Pepper Cory's blog here).  

Detail of Janet's Kintsugi Quilt with Geoglyph E2E

If you don't have time for the in-depth read, here are the basics: When you take this class with Pepper, you bring in an assortments of similar orphan blocks, incomplete and no longer loved projects you don't feel like finishing, and other odd bits and pieces ("shards") you might have lying around your studio.  Pepper guides students to create a layout with an abstract, modern art feel and teaches how to "glue" those pieces together with yardage of a complementary background fabric that acts as the golden lacquer to hold everything together and create a finished work that is more beautiful than all of its bits and pieces were on their own.  Janet chose a Moda Grunge fabric (this post contains affiliate links) for her background that sets off her bright, scrappy blocks and string strips.

Detail of Janet's Kintsugi Quilt with Geoglyph E2E

Janet's Kintsugi quilt is quite large, 88" x 88", with ample negative background space.  We chose a modern digital panto design by Jess Zeigler called Geoglyph that mimics extensive ruler work quilting, and when I set the design up in my computer I flipped, mirror-imaged, and staggered the rows of the design so that there is no traditional design repeat on the entire quilt.  

Two Sweet Baby Boy Quilts for Julie

Good morning, my lovelies!  I am taking some vacation time away from my studio, but I've scheduled a few blog posts to publish while I'm gone since I have quite a few fabulous clients' quilts to share with you.  Today I want to show you two adorable baby quilts, both made by my client Julie and quilted by Yours Truly.  

Julie's 47 x 49 Blue Diamonds Quilt

Julie is one of my favorite clients to quilt for and she blesses the new moms in her life with the sweetest baby quilts that are beautiful, practical, and so very on-trend.  I'll bet the recipients of these baby quilts get asked all the time, "Where did you get that awesome quilt?"  

Her 47" x 49" diamond quilt is made up of simple strip pieced triangles alternated with plain white triangles, so the top came together fairly quickly (while the baby was still a baby!).  This is one of those "why-didn't-I-think-of-that" shower gift projects.  All you really need is a jelly roll (an assortment of 2 1/2" wide x width of fabric strips in coordinating prints) and some solid white.  And it's fabulous!  I love these bold Kaffe Fassett fabrics she used, and the high contrast, graphic prints are perfect for captivating the attention of a newborn whose vision is still developing.  If you want to make your own version of this quilt, there are plenty of Etsy sellers offering jelly roll precut strips in Kaffe Fassett prints like the ones Julie used here (this post contains affiliate links).  However, I personally have a TON of leftover strips from my pineapple log cabin project that would work well for this.  It would make a nice RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) project too, don't you think?  I believe Julie used a 60 degree triangle ruler like these.

Modern Mix Quilting Detail, Stitched in Omni Thread, Color Natural White

We chose Anita Shackelford's Modern Mix quilting design because it repeats many of the shapes in those Kaffe Fassett prints, and because the soft curves and spirals are such a nice counterpoint to the straight lines of the diamonds.